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Re: [Trustees] Objection to reworked para 6.d (Re: Rationale for Proposed TLP Revisions)

2009-07-21 12:29:54
Andrew Sullivan wrote:
On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 08:57:01AM +0200, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
We have two possibilities:

1 - the update consists of revisions of *every single RFC* that references the BSD license 2 - some RFCs continue to carry the BSD license, even while the "real" current license is different.

1 seems like a logistical nightmare. 2 seems confusing to me.

Ok, this is what I was trying to understand.  What you are proposing
is that the licence on the code in the RFC can change
restrospectively, by virtue of the Trust changing the licence they
select.

This scenario is exactly what inspired my first question, then.
Imagine I have a product, and it is shipping.  It has code taken from
an RFC.  The original RFC was published when the Trust used the BSD
licence.  Therefore, as far as I know, the code I used is under BSD
licence.
Suppose now that the Trust now changes the licence they use to the
GPL.  (I know, I know, this won't happen, &c.  But there's nothing to
prevent it, as far as I can tell, except community consensus.  I don't
know what that might be in the future.)  If I understand what you
want, I think there are four possibilities:

    a.  The product I have already shipped is now suddenly covered by
    the GPL.  It may be in violation of the licence therefore.

    b.  The prodict I have already shipped does not change, but
    products I ship after the Trust changes policy are covered under
    the new rules.  So my shipped product is BSD, and my unshipped
    stuff is suddenly GPL (possibly forcing me to change my product,
    or its licence).

    c.  The code I used remains under the BSD because of the date I
    used it, but new uses of that code are under GPL (so my
    competitors would have to have a different licence, or version 2
    of my product might have to have a different licence).
I think this is the version that applies, with one difference that matters.

Under the BSD license, you can ALSO give copies of the copy you took from the RFC to anyone at any time, and they will have the right of modification, but not the right to publish the code without the BSD license text - that is, the BSD license is a sublicenseable license.

Effectively, the code will be available under all licenses that the Trust has ever licensed stuff under between the time of publication and the present time; if a more restrictive license is used (perish the thought!), you have the right to fork the code, and distribute the forked code under the BSD license in perpetuity.
    d.  The date the RFC was published binds the licence, so that the
    terms on the code embedded in the RFC change.  This is equivalent
    to your option (2), I think, and you say its undesirable.

I argue that compared to (a-c), (d) is a big win.  If (d) is right,
however, your option (1) isn't a problem: the RFCs that are already
published don't need a new licence in them, because they stick to the
old one.  Therefore, the new text only gives the Trust a way around
getting a new RFC published with the new licence explicitly selected
by community consensus.  I don't see the reason to provide that short
cut.  If, however, you think (a-c) are preferable, then your proposed
change makes sense.
If I were building a product, however, I would be very wary of using
any code whose licence might change after I've shipped my code.
See above. But as usual, IANAL, I just have opinions.

                      Harald

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